April 2016 – TalentHunt360 Blog

Culture of Engineering Without Boundaries by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

In a 2008 study James J. Duderstadt has pulled together findings and recommendations of various reports that have been emerging since the 1990s concerning the profession of engineering, technology, innovation and the role played by human and intellectual capital, in changing the nature of engineering practice, research, and education. By drawing heavily from recent studies and informed by the wisdom of several expert panels, the author has concluded that engineering practice in a rapidly and technologically changing world will require an ever-expanding knowledge base shifting the paradigm for engineering research to better link scientific discovery to innovation. Engineers he suggests will need to acquire a much higher level of education, particularly in professional skills such as innovation, entrepreneurship, and global engineering practice. He argues that possession of relevant knowledge, creation of new knowledge, and the capacity to apply this knowledge are now key determinants of the strength of a nation.

Globally, privatization has been releasing telephone, utility and other nationalized companies from state control. Digital technologies such as the internet, audio, video and text-based communications are now available to individual users through their personal computers and hand-held mobile devices. Time and space once stopped replication of monumental structures and the movement of people and knowledge. Monumental integration of spatial and time scales using cyberspace technology within larger and larger systems of great complexity has now blurred spatial and temporal barriers giving rise to Engineering without boundaries. Neither mobility nor accreditation – engineering cultures of a world divided by time and space can withstand the impact of these developments. Consequently globalization and internationalization of engineering – education and practice – are now hot topics in relation to the evolution of this profession.

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The Culture of Brain Circulation by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

AnnaLee Saxenian suggests that global labor markets are being transformed through the changing costs of transportation at the same time as digital technologies make long distance exchange of large amounts of information possible in real-time. International migration – historically a one-way process – she states has become a reversible choice. Scientists and engineers from developing countries – once forced to choose between settling abroad and returning home to less attractive professional opportunities now contribute to their home economies while maintaining professional ties in more advanced economies. Some even become “transnational‟ maintaining residences and citizenship, in more than one nation. The same individuals who left their home countries for better lifestyles abroad in the last quarter of the 20th century are reversing brain drain by transforming it into “brain circulation‟ as they return to their home countries to establish business relationships or start new companies. They do this by maintaining their social and professional links to industrialized countries.

For example, in the early 1980s immigrants began to transfer the Silicon Valley model of early-stage high-risk investing to Taiwan and Israel. The returning immigrants brought capital, technical and operating experience, knowledge of new business models, and networks of contacts in the United States to these countries already having the cultural and linguistic know-how needed to operate profitably in these markets. Consequently Israel and Taiwan today boast the largest VC industries outside North America, and both have and support high rates of new firm formation and growth.

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Twenty First Century Engineering- Culture of Sustainability, by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

Many industrialized countries face ageing populations and slowing natural population increase at present. Further baby-boomers in these countries, the first of who will be turning 65 in 2011, will be retiring in large numbers changing urban demographics in these countries. Consequently these countries are encouraging high immigration levels to fuel economic growth. Their rural-urban fringes are also growing rapidly. There is growing concern about the environmental consequences of these patterns, particularly the dependence on the automobile.

At the same time some developing countries are industrializing rapidly, particularly China and India, increasing the demand for natural resources even as supplies dwindle. Frugal engineering an overarching philosophy that enables a true “clean sheet” approach to product development is emerging from this. An example of this is the new Tata Nano highlighted by Rohit Talwar, Chief Executive of Global Futures and Foresight in London. Frugal engineering recalls an approach common in the early days of U.S. assembly-line manufacturing: Henry Ford‟s Model T that transformed the transportation in the United States. Frugal engineering is addressing billions of consumers at the bottom of the pyramid who are quickly moving out of poverty in China, India, Brazil, and other emerging nations.

The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that China and India will drive a more than 40% increase in global demand for oil by 2030. In July 2008, Al Gore connected the dots to the energy crises the U.S. faces and drew a picture of non-sustainability. He challenged the U.S. to generate 100% of the electricity it needs using clean, renewable, sustainable sources within 10 years.21 As a result of these changes engineers find themselves addressing sustainability, a critical dimension in engineering in the twenty first century.

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Twenty First Century Engineering- The Mega and Nano Cultures by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

Five years ago, according to Charles M. Vest18 President Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology there were two frontiers of engineering, each of which had to do with scale and each of which was associated with increasing complexity. One frontier had to do with larger and larger systems of great complexity and, generally, of great importance to society. This was the world of energy, environment, food, manufacturing, product development, logistics, and communications. This frontier was addressing some of the most daunting challenges facing humanity. Consequently many today believe in the need to develop and place mega-systems engineering at the center of engineering education in the decades ahead.

The other frontier had to do with smaller and smaller spatial scales and faster and faster time scales, the world of so-called bio/nano/info. This was mainly due to the information revolution that resulted from the advent of the personal computer and internet ushering in a period of great change. This frontier melding physical, life, and information sciences, offers stunning, unexplored possibilities, and natural forces of this frontier compel students to work across traditional disciplinary boundaries. As Biologists and neuroscientists have discovered the immense complexity of even the simplest living systems, engineers are becoming indispensable to research in life sciences. The language in the life sciences today is about circuits, networks, and pathways while engineers investigate advanced molecular self-assembly.Out of this world will come products and processes that will drive a new round of entrepreneurship.

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Culture of Mutual Recognition by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

As empires rapidly dissolved after 1960 many dominions and colonies had partly or completely adapted the institutional and academic engineering governance models of the colonizers. A large number of engineering associations resulted from this laying the foundation stones for an ‘unofficial Commonwealth’ of professional associations and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs).16 Globally this meant that licensing and regulation of engineers became more prevalent as a means of maintaining engineering standards and protecting public safety, health and welfare.

Just as issues of national mobility of engineers across states had emerged in America at the turn of the twentieth century, issues of international recognition of qualifications started to become significant after 1960. Multi-lateral credential recognition agreements began to be put in place. These were meant to promote mobility of engineers across borders but were largely derived from the traditional model of core industrialized countries as leaders and developing countries as peripheral followers. These international agreements and discussions can now be divided into two components:

 Mutual Recognition and accreditation of Academic Qualification Agreements and;

 Mobility Forums concerned with assessing professional practice and registration of engineers

A myriad of national and international mutual recognition agreements have evolved since 1989. These include the Washington, Dublin and Sydney accords initiated by ABET, the APEC and ASEAN Registers of Asian Engineers and the FEANI and Bologna Accords to standardize engineering education across Europe. Since the mid nineties focus has shifted to mobility forums concerned with assessing professional practice and registration of engineers across borders.

Significantly different accreditation outcomes have resulted from these. ABET in America has extended accreditation to international levels. It accredits over 3,100 programs at more than 600 institutions in 22 Countries (as of September 2011). CEAB in Canada however has failed to internationalize and currently only accredits 220 engineering programs in 43 schools across Canada. Consequently Engineers migrating to America from other countries face few barriers to licensing or employment while only 1 in 6 of those migrating to Canada get to be licensed or employed as engineers in Canada. Mobility and accreditation now face new challenges.

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The Culture of Credential Recognition by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

Accreditation of engineering education was started by ECPD that had accredited 580 undergraduate engineering programs at 133 universities by 1947. In 1980 ECPD restructured to become the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) to certify engineering degree programs in the United States.

The equivalent process was set up in Canada with the establishment of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) in 1965 to accredit engineering programs across Canada.15 The objective of CEAB was to provide the academic requirements necessary for licensure as a professional engineer in Canada. Like ECPD in 1986 Engineers Canada established the Canadian Engineering Qualifications Board (CEQB) to develop national guidelines on professional engineering qualifications, standards of practice, ethics and professional conduct.

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The Culture of Public Protection by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

After the Second World War, engineers in America became increasingly aware of the social impact of their work. A sequence of events starting with use of the atomic bomb in the war continuing with the incidents such as the Three Mile Island disaster, the Ford Pinto case, and the Union Carbide explosion at Bhopal, generated a significant concern in the media and the public about the effects of technology and engineering on human well-being. Corporations and governments received a fair amount of blame for these events. Deriving from these concerns, the Engineering Council for Professional Development (ECPD) that had adopted a code of ethics in 1947 was forced to renew its interest in ethics in engineering. EPCD made it a leading duty for engineers to ‘have due regard for the safety of life and health of the public.

The self-regulating NSPE in America also released Canons of Ethics and Rules of Professional Conduct for Engineers, which evolved into its current Code of Ethics, adopted in 1964. The NSPE code led in 1981 to the adoption of „Fundamental Canons,‟ the first being to „Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.’ Protection of public health, welfare and safety was likewise introduced into engineering regulation in Canada in the 1990s.

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Culture of Advocacy and Self-interest by Gurmeet Bambrah

April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

State licensing in America helped move regulation of engineering away from self- regulation. The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) set up in 1934 to focus on self-interests of engineers such as legislative issues, public understanding and recognition of the profession, ethical practice, compensation, and protecting PEs from attempts to restrict their right to practice engineering.

In Canada the hybrid self-regulation licensing model made it difficult to separate self-interests of engineers from public interests. In 2000 the provincial regulator in Ontario, PEO – now Engineers Ontario – was persuaded to separate its regulatory and non-regulatory functions by supporting the formation of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE). Engineers Ontario provided start-up funds to OSPE for three years and it was not until 2004 that OSPE was able to define itself as the voice of the engineering profession in Ontario. At present its function is to advance the professional and economic interests of its members by advocating with governments, offering member services and professional development opportunities.

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Ethics & Accreditation in Engineering

April 19, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

TalentHunt 360’s founder and CEO Gurmeet Bambrah, PhD write on Ethics and Accreditation in Engineering:

As conflicts between self-interests of engineers and public interest emerged, client/engineer issues gained prominence in North America in early 1900s and a wave of reforms started to set in place implicit codes of ethics for engineers. Primary examples of these were the codes of ethics of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, (adopted in 1912) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers, both of which were adopted in 1914. 9, 5,14

In a second wave of reforms the Engineers Council for Professional Development (EPCD) was founded in America in 1932 – as an organization of organizations (rather than individuals) – to promote consistency in the licensing, ethics and practice of engineering. Following these developments the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (CCPE) – now Engineers Canada – was set up in 1936 to promote consistency in the engineering educational standards, regulatory and licensing practices of provincial regulators in Canada.

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Canadian Engineering Culture

April 19, 2016 Harleen Jabbal Leave a comment

TalentHunt 360’s founder and CEO Gurmeet Bambrah, PhD write on Canadian Engineering Culture:

In Canada control of professional education was assigned to the provincial jurisdiction under the British North American Treaty. Like its American counterpart, the self-regulating Canadian Society of Civil Engineers (CSCE) did not endorse the external regulation of engineers. CSCE was however blocked from the regulatory function by its dominion-chartered status. By transforming itself into the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), it was able to encourage engineers in the provinces to set up self-regulating groups. Between 1920 and 1922, seven of the nine provinces in Canada established engineering associations13 that were incorporated under the Professional Engineers Act in 1922. This act allowed them to register engineers but stopped short of allowing them to license members. In 1937, the self-regulating associations successfully fought to amend the 1922 Professional Engineers Act. Under the amended Professional Engineers Act, licensing of their members by the associations became mandatory.13 Engineering associations thus wrested the function of regulating engineering from the Provincial Governments opening the door for them to control who could practice engineering in Canada. This hybrid self-governance model empowered engineering associations to protect self-interests of their members through licensing. A consistent theme in the quest of Canada‟s engineers to define their role therefore has been self-regulation and control over who can practice engineering in the provinces of Canada.

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